Afghan journalist's death must lead to better combat rules

Wednesday, the Afghanistan Analysts Network
(AAN) released its report, "Death
of an Uruzgan Journalist: Command Errors and Collateral Damage," by Kate
Clark on the July 2011 shooting death of journalist Omaid Khpalwak.
Clark's details on how Khpalwak died corroborate and then go beyond the
investigation already conducted by the U.S.-led NATO forces who were
responsible. Her report was important to write, and is important to read.

Khpalwak,
who worked for the BBC and Pajhwok Afghan News, was at a local office of state
broadcaster Radio and Television of Afghanistan in Tarin Kot, capital of
Uruzgan province, when the Taliban targeted the governor's office and police
headquarters at the same location. It wasn't immediately clear whether the
Taliban had killed him, or he died in the cross-fire when the NATO forces,
known as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), counterattacked.

Eventually, as we reported in
September 2011, ISAF released a statement
taking responsibility for the killing. They said an American soldier shot
Khpalwak because he thought he was an armed insurgent reaching for a bomb under
his vest. "He was unarmed; no weapon was found nearby. It appears all the
rounds perceived as coming from him were instead fired by U.S. soldiers," the
ISAF statement said. Investigators concluded that troops may have mistaken
a press card Khpalwak was holding up as identification for a bomb
trigger.

Using a freedom of information request, Australian
reporter Tom Hyland, writing for The
Sunday Age in January this year, managed to get a heavily redacted
version of the full ISAF report -- which still had plenty of revealing
detail.

While Hyland pressed for the full official
account to fill out his own investigation, AAN's Clark was on the ground delving
into the full circumstances of Khpalwak's death. She found conflicting accounts.
The Afghan government, in an unreleased report Clark managed to access, said
the Taliban had killed him. Further muddying the waters, ISAF initially claimed
that Afghan National Security Forces had led the counter-attack. Clark's
harrowing account of the siege of the broadcaster's office -- first a Taliban
suicide bomb attack and then the counter-attack by ISAF and what it initially
said were Afghan troops -- refutes those claims. Her reporting found little
evidence of any but the most negligible involvement of Afghan forces.

I checked this morning with ISAF for their
response to Clark's report. This is what Lieut. Col. Jimmie Cummings, who
handles public affairs in Afghanistan, had to say:

ISAF stands by its reporting on this
unfortunate incident. After a thorough investigation it was determined that Mr.
Khpalwak was killed in a case of mistaken identity. The reporter was shot by a
U.S. member who believed he was an insurgent that posed a threat and was about
to detonate a suicide vest improvised explosive device (IED). After thoroughly
looking at all the evidence it was determined that U.S. forces acted
appropriately and within the ROE [rules of engagement] under the circumstances.

Still, AAN's decision to cut through the
chaos of what happened that day is admirable. In raising many questions and levelling
serious charges about the various official accounts of Khpalwak's death, she
reminds us of the importance of ground-level reporting and dogged investigation
-- something that often goes by the boards in the rush of daily events in a
theatre of war like Afghanistan. Even if all sides are operating in the best of
faith, simply relying on official accounts of combatants from any side in a
conflict does not do the job.

AAN wants more honesty from ISAF: They
initially claimed the Taliban killed Omaid and that Afghan forces were there
and had performed well. Perhaps worse, they wouldn't release the internal
military report into his death -- a report that was critical of a commander's
failure to exercise tactical patience and to check for civilians present --
until a freedom of information application was made. AAN says more
forthrightness could have assuaged widespread suspicions of a cover-up that
festered for months.

One take-away from the report is a concern
that CPJ
has raised before: Khpalwak was killed in his place of work, a radio and
television broadcast facility, waving his press card, unarmed, in the middle of
a chaotic fire fight in a confined area. In the U.S. Army and Marine Corp's Counterinsurgency
Field Manual (COIN-FM) -- the basic outline of tactics for troops in
situations like those encountered in Afghanistan -- there is not one word of
how combat troops should interact with journalists, local or foreign, who they
encounter in the field.

One of the goals of Clark's report is to
"raise the question of whether local journalists, who are the key figures in
reporting in conflict zones in Afghanistan, can be better protected." In my
reporting on local journalists in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas
in October 2009 I raised a
similar issue. It's as good a point to make now as it was back then:

As the U.S. military calculates its
strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it should reassess its own
approach toward journalists in the field. The U.S. military should
set an international example by training its troops on rules of conduct when
they encounter local reporters in the field. To be effective, those rules
should be written in consultation with the global community of journalists, and
the next edition of the military's Counterinsurgency Field Manual should
include those rules. The COIN-FM reflects the most current thinking of the
world's most prominent military. It is the rule book by which U.S. troops
behave in the field, and those rules must be laid down clearly.

If those rules had been laid down more
clearly, just possibly Omaid Khpalwak might still be alive today.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.

Comments

Sorry for my english. I am deeply sad for every die journalist. How can we prevent the death? Who have to get panishment for it? Should GS Journ Security keep responsibility for life of every journalist and how better organise safety? I am for pure, non crime relited and well protected press.

As is typical in such "reports", an extremely biased, one sided, agenda driven depiction of the events as they unfolded is given to move the audience to an emotional outcry in favor of the author. I would remind you that Clark is not a reporter, and forced no such release of information. She simply used the process in place to obtain what is legally accessible to any party.

Here's one simple thought. If members of the media make the conscience decision to enter into a war zone, by its very nature a life threatening area, it is up to the Media to protect that person, not the military. Are journalists not rational thinking human beings?

Agreed if the journalist is on a sanctioned, supported embed, then it the military has assumed responsibility for that person's safety. If however, like many reporters do, enter a conflict zone, on their own; then they are on their own. Period.

To insinuate that journalists should somehow be involved in the development of ROE or rules of war is not only idiotic, it's simply absurd. Journalists have no more business in this arena as soldiers do in making editorial decisions for the New York Post.

While Omaid's death is a tragedy, there was no breakdown in ROE, or violation of any law or treaty that allows blame to be placed where this clearly biased report attempts to do.

Nice slant here, but so far off base as to be simply ridiculous.

It's a war zone. How about doing an in-depth report on all the journalists being killed in Pakistan...how about showing as much disgust for that group. Oh, that wouldn't be poking at the great satan that has given so much in treasure and life.

Michael,Omaid Khpalwak was killed while working in his own country in own office building.

Using inflammatory terms such as "idiotic" doesn't change the fact that Khpalwak was shot by ISAF troops who mistook his press card for a bomb trigger.

When an innocent person dies in such circumstances, authorities have the ethical responsibility to examine what can be done to prevent a recurrence.

The murders of Pakistani have been well covered, and deservedly so. But the unnecessary death of journalist covering the news in his own country at the hands of military troops deserves serious examination as well.

Kate is an experienced journalist who was working in Afghanistan for the BBC long before 09/11.

To say that journalists should "somehow be involved in the development of ROE or rules of war is not only idiotic, it's simply absurd" is absurd.

I have been on any number of trips where the most combat-experienced people were the journalists, some of whom had done nothing but go from warzone to warzone without a break for 20 years. They had the skills, experience, local knowledge and language that the soldiers did not.

Some were ex-military, some were not, but either way, they lived and breathed the local situation and did not do small, one-off tours of places they were not much interested in. They did not dream of going home, or even take weeks or months off to go home. They stayed put.

These journalists had libraries full of books on the countries and culture of a given place and also as many books on combat-related situations, which is why they survived for so long.